Hoggle's Quite Devious Game
by Ribanusa
Summary: Full Summary in profile. Basically Sarah gets wrapped up in a quite interesting computer game, while Jareth gets tied into the same...All thank to Hoggle.
1. In Which Sarah Makes a Rash Bet

Sarah eyed the shiny red disk in her hand warily.  
"Greg? Come on, you know I don't really like computer games."  
"Sarah, this one is really good!" Sarah raised her eyebrows disbelievingly, setting the disk down in delicate distaste. Most computer games either crashed her entire system, or didn't give her enough directions for her to actually know what she was doing. I mean, Sarah thought, How were you supposed to defeat the evil overlord Googamel if you didn't know how to walk?  
Greg tapped his fingers impatiently.  
"I'll bet you for it.say, my.um.hmmm.my guitar against your lava lamp?"  
Greg had a thing for Lava Lamps. Rashly, Sarah accepted with out a second thought.  
"Deal. So what are the terms?"  
"If you don't call me back with in one hour of playing the game, I get your lava lamp. If you do, you get my guitar."  
"Fine." Greg smiled and picked up his schoolbag from the floor. "Well, I have the homework I came over for. And you I would surmise, have more than you bargained for. See ya?"  
Sarah shot him a look. "Bye, Greg. I'll call you before an hours up I'm sure."  
Greg just rolled his eyes and left. Tentatively, Sarah flipped the disk over and placed in her computer, and reading for the first time the name of the game.which happened to be "Labyrinth - The Game."  
  
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Jareth yawned lazily and rolled over in his fur covered throne. There was something annoying tapping on his shoulder. He swatted at it but it wouldn't go away.  
"What?" He murmured unhappily. He lifted the lid of his blue eye to show him the unpleasant sight of Hoggle holding a clipboard. He was about to banish him to the Bog of Eternal Stench, but then he remembered that he couldn't thanks to the cursed dice game he played with Hoggle the decade before. Damn him. He thought angrily and shifted himself to upright position.  
Hoggle ahem-ahemed importantly. Jareth shot him a glare of pure hatred only brought on by one being woken up all too early. Hoggle shut up and got on with what he was going to say.  
"Sire, according to the bet you made against me - and lost, I might add-" Hoggle caught the unmistakable sound of teeth being ground together, and decided that it would be in his best interest to get to the point.  
"Well anyway, the goblins had gotten bored and, well anyway you have been signed up to play the bad guy in the computer game version of the Labyrinth."  
Jareth sat straight up in his chair. "WHAT!?" He bellowed.  
  
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"WHAT?!" Sarah yelled, unknowingly echoing Jareth's sentiments. Then her computer accepted the disk and started to install. Frantically she tried to abort the download but it was impossible. Defiling Greg's name with a menagerie of four letter words not fit to print, she stared defiantly at the screen as the program loaded, booted up, and finally asked for her to press the start button.  
The graphics were pretty good so grudgingly she pressed it. Another loading sign came up and she mused as she waited. I'm not particularly scared of Jareth, but rather of what in hell this is. Her attention was brought back the screen when a little bubble popped up asking her name which she obligingly typed in. Was it her, or did the screen do a double take? She pushed it off as suspicion. After all, Sarah was a hideously common name and a boring name at that, many people had it.  
Shaking her head she impatiently answered all of the little blurbs popping up. When it asked if she had ever eaten an enchanted peach, she got pretty pissed off.  
"OK! OK! I'm THAT FRICKING SARAH WHO RAN THE LABYRINTH!!! IS THAT FRICKING GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU!?" She was standing up and yelling. To her surprise, the various boxes disappeared and a small, computerized looking Hoggle appeared.  
"Sarah!" He squeaked, eerily - at least to Sarah's vantage - real.  
"Hoggle?" She sat down with a start, falling abruptly to the floor - in her annoyed rantings, she had tipped over the chair. Righting the chair and herself, she adjusted the volume so she could hear him better.  
"Hello, Sarah. Welcome back to the Labyrinth." Sarah was sure that the Welcome back part could not have been in the programming.  
"The Labyrinth is an amazing virtual reality journey that takes you inside the many wonderful and unforgettable twists and turns of the Labyrinth."  
Unforgettable is right, she thought.  
"And you, Sarah the bold and brave adventurer, must conquer these puzzles of mind and body to face the ultimate test - Jareth Goblin King!  
Again Sarah's last words before she was sucked into the Labyrinth were "WHAT?!"  
  
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Jareth looked disbelievingly at Hoggle, now fully and unpleasantly awake.  
"You mean to say," He said this slowly as if Hoggle was slow. "That are forcing me, the goblin KING, to play the part of the evil villain in an ABOVE GROUND COMPUTER GAME!?"  
Hoggle waited a second, considered. After a while he said. "Well, yes."  
Jareth it was safe to say was seething.  
"I can't believe this! If I hadn't taken that bet-"  
"Ah, but you did." Remarked Hoggle, placidly calm. This made Jareth all the angrier. After about one broken vase and/or expensive object or two, Jareth was finally calm enough to consider his options. By his vow he made when placing his bet, he had to fulfill one demand of Hoggle's, and this was obviously it. Jareth clenched his jaw bitterly, willing himself to make the best of it.  
"So, Hoggle, what exactly do I have to do?"  
"Seeing as you will be playing to clichéd evil villain, milord-"  
Hoggle was interrupted by a particularly ugly goblin running toward Jareth with a black cape on hanger covered by clear plastic that read "Underground Dry Cleaning" across it.  
"Uh, Good day you kingship sah, I dry cleaned your black cape for yore, uhm, new position sah-"  
Furious, Jareth pimpslapped the unfortunate goblin into the wall, leaving a pretty deep dent.  
Somewhat amused, Hoggle noted that if Jareth had been an Above- grounder, he would have been a good pimp. Jareth turned back to Hoggle.  
"As we were saying."  
"Yes. You are playing the overly clichéd villain who always loses." Hoggle silenced Jareth's openmouthed protest at having to loose to anyone. "And then, at the end, the player will be rewarded with an actual magical talent." Jareth managed to look surprised, a magical talent was quite a heady gift for a mortal.  
"And who, exactly is playing this game?"  
"I think you might be interested, sire." Hoggle pointed toward a mirror that now showed a picture of Sarah. 


	2. In Which Sarah Chooses Companions

The Author's Many Notes:  
  
Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own The Labyrinth. I own a paper crane. I made it in math class.  
  
Daemon Faerie Queen : :P Supposedly, according to people at my school, a pimp slap is a back hand slap. Lol, go figure. Any way, about the plot, much more is to be revealed this chapter.  
  
Belladona: ^_^ I'm happy you like it!  
  
Jessie Deal: That is my favourite part as well, fancy that.  
  
Robyn Maddison: Thanks, o first reviewer!  
  
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Chapter Two  
  
Sarah looked around, outraged. She had not wished her self away, or anyone else for that matter, though Greg would fit the bill for someone she wanted to get rid of at the moment if she was foolish enough to do so. Which at the moment she wasn't. So, according to the rules she should not be here. Suddenly, a quite obvious realization struck her. She wasn't in the Labyrinth. She was in a computer game that mocked the Labyrinth. She could tell that by the cheap graphics. Again, something that was supposedly impossible was happening. She was in a clearing, albeit a beaten down one, with a forest encroaching around the rim, but they were not the dark dank forests of the Labyrinth but rather happy looking ones. Obviously, some one had taken some poetic license to the Labyrinth. Jareth, if he had heard of it, would not have been happy.  
"Now.what do I do?" Sarah wondered aloud, wishing she brought the instruction booklet with her. But as she spoke, the computerized Hoggle appeared with a burst of 0's and 1's (in green and black like the Matrix, Sarah noted with desultory nod.) He was dressed like an expensive accountant, though an expensive accountant from around possibly colonial times. He had gilded spectacles, which obviously ment there had been some shift in power in the underground if this was actually a real projection of the physical Hoggle. Sarah thought it was. He also carried a clip board with a pen.  
  
"Sarah! Hello, haven't seen you in a while." HE took a step toward her, and held out his hand. Sarah shook in.  
  
"Er, nice to see you to, Hoggle," She released his grip. "So, why am I here, exactly? I thought this was a computer game."  
  
Hoggle tried to lower his glasses either to look intelligent or as if he was confiding in her a secret. He accomplished neither.  
" It's actually quite clever. This is just a computerized projection of you, just as this is a projection of me," Sarah gave him a look that prompted him to get to the point. "Anyway, now that you are in you can't get out. You have to play the game until either you lose or you die." Sarah looked at first dismayed but then her eyes glinted with triumph. "Suicide, however, is not an option." Sarah's face fell.  
  
If I'm stuck here, I might as well go off knowing what I am supposed to do.  
  
"Okay Hoggle, what am I supposed to do? Like, the point of the game and stuff."  
  
Hoggle finished jotting down a note on his clipboard. He looked up at her.  
  
"You are to have your pick of a multitude of companions. You may pick three out of the selection presented to you. The objective of the game is to reach the Goblin Palace,"  
  
Oh, where have I heard *that* before.  
  
"Once you get there you will face down the Goblin King, Jareth."  
  
Been there, done that.  
  
" However you do not travel through the Labyrinth to get to the palace. Somebody posted directions on Mapquest, so we can't do that anymore."  
  
Sarah flushed, but luckily Hoggle missed it.  
  
"You follow a magical thread that takes you to the palace. Along the way you will meet other dwellers of the Labyrinth. The knowledge they pass on to you may or may not help you. If you are successful you will be awarded a magical talent that will affect you in the real world."  
  
Sarah hitched up her jeans. So far, so good. Get companions, follow thread, beat Jareth, get talent. Easy enough, but there had to be a catch. Always was, other wise someone was really retarded.  
  
"So what's the catch-22?"  
  
"Catch-22, catch-22, oh yes, the fault or trick of the game. Yes, there is one."  
  
Sarah resisted from saying "Duh" in a loud obnoxious way.  
  
"Well, of your three chosen companions, one is unfaithful and will eventually betray you. It is in your best interest to find out this traitor before you reach the castle, because if they haven't betrayed you already, the will to be sure betray you then."  
  
Sarah gulped. That was one unexpected catch, something to deep or crafty for Hoggle and something Jareth could come up with. Yup, definitely Jareth, which would make this game infinitly harder. Sarah decided that she should get the most information out of Hoggle.  
  
"How will I know who is the traitor?" To her disappointment, Hoggle just shrugged uncommittedly. Sarah let out a sigh tinged with exasperation. All she wanted to do was to get on with the game.  
  
"Can I see the possible companions, Hoggle?"  
  
Broken out of his short reverie Hoggle muttered something and then, poof! A small screen appeared, separated into thirteen different sections. Each space was filled with a face. There was Sir Didimus, Hoggle himself, and Ludo filling up the first three. About to choose them with out considering the other ones, Sarah paused. Jareth would most likely expect her to take these three, so why not choose other ones? Plus, I would rather be betrayed by someone I don't know than a friend. Retracting her finger from the screen, she scanned over the other possibilities.  
Tell a Tale - A green, tiny pixie who could speak to spiders and conjure lettuce.  
Katalat - A gigantic ocelot.  
Mongo - An oddly-coloured Orge.  
Neemo and Finch - The wife and husband worms Sarah had met on her first adventure.  
Gurr - A female goblin, who by the looks of it, was one tough cinnamon roll.  
Tim - A warlock.  
KoriKori - A red jelly monster. The next creature was a sludge creature from the Bog of Eternal Stench. Not gonna happen. She quickly skipped over that one and continued to the last two companions.  
  
Ashe - A blonde, well endowed mermaid. Sarah eyes her with distaste, while Tim the Warlock, eyed her as well. Ashe blushed and Sarah passed her, disgusted. Finally there was as little golden finch who was a singing quite fetchingly. With out thinking, Sarah picked the bird as her first companion. Shoot, I cant do that again. I need companions with good abilities.  
Sarah once more looked over the other companions , sizing up their abilities. Finally she decided on Tell A Tale the Pixie and to her surprise, Gurr the goblin. All three materialized together. Suddenly, Hoggle and the peaceful scenery disappeared. They were in the dank Labyrinth forest Sarah remembered, with only a glowing crimson thread to guide them.  
  
This'll put a dapper on things.  
  
A/N: Sarah's thoughts should be in Italics. 


	3. In Which Sarah Becomes Jealous

Some Various Author's Notes  
  
Belladona - *Really* good point there, so I'll have to add some tension :P I'm just so tired of all those Sarah/Jareth or just Sarah by herself painfully angsty stories.  
  
Jessie Deal - Thanks +^_^+  
  
Musicgirl141 - Hehe XD Thanks! Very curious... has to be the best thing to be said in a review.  
  
A/N Sarah's thoughts are supposed to be in Italics, but because fanfiction.net doesnt do italics, it is single quotes.  
  
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Chapter Three  
  
The bird began to trill in a very high pitch. Gurr, who was a goblin maiden (and just so you know, Goblin maidens differ *very* from their male counterparts - more like just pretty human girls / women who are short.) Mumbled something about being hungry and pointed to the trial - a glowing crimson thread.  
To Sarah, the bird's incessant trilling became quite annoying. Fast. It kept going higher and higher and Tell A Tale who had been swooping about the braches of an Alder Tree, was holding her ears.  
"GAH! I can't stand it anymore!!!" Sarah reached up and snatched the Little Bird. It crumpled in her hands and it seemed as if a shadow had been cast over the path. Sarah realized that there was no shadow, but only the golden light that was produce by the bird's unpleasant shrieks was gone.  
"Stupid mortal, the bird was lighting the path! You humans." Tell A Tale had flittered down a couple feet and was buzzing angrily in Sarah's ear. Sarah looked over at the small, cabbage colored sprite and flicked her. She went sprawling into an acorn hanging off of a tree.  
Stupid little Lima Bean, thought Sarah, who could only think of a Lima Bean - which she held in great loathing - to compare to the flittering sprite.  
  
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Jareth peered into the Mirror and watched as if in a trance Sarah talk to Hoggle and pick her situations. He chuckled.  
"Just like her to think of suicide." Hoggle murmured in agreement, not really wanting to engage in a conversation with the king. Jareth had the air of an old man who has nothing to do but sit around and watch T.V. while not bothering about flatulent conditions. Literally, Hoggle sighed and reapplied his nose plug.  
Jareth turned to Hoggle.  
"So, this game does interest me." He paused and waited for Hoggle to look a bit surprised. Hoggle failed to comply, as Jareth always had been scarily obsessed with anything to do with Sarah. Looks disgruntled Jareth continued.  
"And I would like to play the villain-" He glanced and Hoggle "-not that I have a choice."  
Hoggle was tempted to say, No Shit Sherlock, but stopped himself in time.  
"Jareth, by the way, we really need to get rid of your little spandex problem. Also that little riding crop fetish you have."  
Jareth looked horribly offended.  
"You mean my *look*? My *look* isn't "hip" enough? Come on?" He struck a pose.  
"I'm blond, handsome, dramatic, cruel, and the spandex makes me look hot." Hoggle quirked an eyebrow.  
"And the riding crop milord?"  
"It's kinky you know? A little whichaw! on things." Hoggle looked strangely sickened.  
"No matter. You look quite out of date, and the look we are going for is dashing-villain-who-the-valiant-heroine-must-not-fall-in-love-with-but- does-anyway look."  
"And *what* makes you think I don't fit the bill?" Jareth shot back wrathfully.  
"Let's put it to the test, shall we?"  
  
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Sarah opened her fist to let the bird out. Unfortunately, it wasn't there. There was just some crumpled tinsel and a couple glass beads. Sarah blinked.  
"Um......yeah, anyway." She quickly changed the topic I'm Sarah - who are you guys?"  
"Obviously you know us if you picked us," Snapped Tell a Tale, who had managed to extract herself from the acorn and catch up with them.  
"Consider who is playing the game and therefore controlling your electronic existence?" Tell A Tale hmphed.  
"I'm Gurr."  
"Hi." They paused for a moment as the thread that was leading them onward ran through a river. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but why do Goblin women look so different from the men?"  
Gurr laughed, a melodious voice that startled Sarah could not hope to rival. 'It's slightly depressing that I am less attractive then a three and a half foot woman.'  
"No no my dear I don't mind at all. You see, Goblin men were made ugly. And in the beginning so were we. But after about, oh, maybe 300 millennia or so, we got a bit pissed off. That time of the month, you know. So we pretty much all but attacked Jareth, demanding to be beautiful."  
Gurr smiled. Beautifully.  
"The wonders of the frying pan," She cooed and laughed. Sarah managed to force her self to laugh, a bit surprised because she usually wasn't so jealous of someone.  
They splashed through the river, Gurr lifting up her dainty white dress. Sarah suddenly became confused. Gurr had looked like a rough country bumpkin in the slide show thingy. And country bumpkins, however beautiful did not wear white silk dresses. With a half of a pout and a half doubt, Sarah put it off as just the main quirk of the Labyrinth, Nothing is what it seems.  
Perhaps an hour or two later the sun gradually fell down into the darkness of the night. Tell a Tale was fluttering ahead, looking for a path. She had become a bit more companionable during the last couple of hours. Her luminous eyes shone bright in the darkness.  
"Er, Tell A Tale, is there a campsite up a head?"  
"Actually, there is. It's right..."  
"Where?"  
"To the left..."  
"Here?"  
"More to the right."  
"Near(er)?"  
"One step a head."  
"Good?"  
"NOOOOOOOOD!" 'What the hell?!!!' Sarah was instantly covered in a heap of lettuce, and some of it none to clean.  
  
"WHAT WAS THAT!?"  
  
Tell A Tale just flittered off to land on an Alder Tree, which was in fact right by a clearing.  
  
"Well, she just summoned a lot of lettuce on you." Remarked Gurr, unawares that she wasn't doing much to remedy the situation, and strolled over to the clearing and laid down. Climbing out of the Lettuce pile. Sarah laid down next to Gurr.  
  
"Well, yes, but what about that "nood" part? That is what I am confused about..."  
  
"Nood must be her summoning word." Gurr glanced over at Tell A Tale, who was fast asleep in her Alder Tree.  
  
"What is a summoning word?" remarked Sarah, genuinely interested. Last time she was here there hadn't been Summoning Words.  
  
"Well, when someone has the magical talent of summoning, they have a word they use to activate it. Obviously, hers is Noodu," She looked at Sarah curiously. "Didn't they say that in her profile?"  
  
"No." Sarah said. 'Nor did they put in "crazy skito" but then again that would drive people away, fancy that?'  
Gurr fell asleep and though she felt a bit restless, Sarah fell asleep soon after. The next morning, she woke up, expecting the scenery of the dreary forest once again. But when she opened her eyes....  
  
A/N: CLIFFHANGER!!! AHHHHHHH!!!  
  
.... 


End file.
